Editorial August 27, 1921 Issue

Building

Gustavus S. Paine

From the tower of Babel and the temples of Egypt to the mansions and skyscrapers of to-day material building has seemed difficult, because it represents a human concept of permanence that is impossible. Delays and discords in the process of building always come from mortal mind's aim to imitate the constructive unfoldment of Principle. If building is to be successful there must be a change in the mental attitude toward it, and this change must, sooner or later, come about through the understanding of Christian Science, which shows what the true idea of building is in place of the counterfeit. The real structure is not a mass of stone, steel, and other earthly materials that may last only some hundreds or thousands of mortal years, but is the eternal idea in Mind.

A material building, whether it be a house, an office building, a museum, or a church, is of no real value in itself, for matter in all its phases is only belief in supposititious mortal mind. It is the divine intelligence which the true idea of building manifests that counts. As Mrs. Eddy says on page 162 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," "Our proper reason for church edifices is, that in them Christians may worship God,—not that Christians may worship church edifices!" The material building is a temporary human means which should be a useful, beautiful, and simple structure, not calling special attention to itself as a thing of matter, but turning thought to divine intelligence and its expression. It succeeds in fulfilling its purpose in proportion as the sense of materiality is subordinated rigorously to the understanding of Principle.

From its very nature mortal mind prefers destruction to construction, for mortal mind itself is the suppositional opposite of the only constructive power there is, the divine Mind. That is why the suggestions of discord and delay appear in the midst of a process of building. Mortal mind dislikes true permanence and stability, which, as the manifestation of Principle, must inevitably reduce mortal mind and its beliefs to nothingness while replacing them with the true idea. Thus mortal mind revels in the destructiveness of war and is reluctant to accept the constructive activity of peace as necessary. The settling down to constructive work, including the wise building of what is nearest right in any circumstances, is insured only by the understanding that the divine Mind always has been unfolding and always must unfold as spiritual idea, which alone is truly substantial and durable.

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